The Central team will be sent to nine states and Delhi.Twenty central public health teams have been constituted and are being deployed in as many affected districts having high case load of COVID-19 in nine states including Delhi to upscale containment plans and surveillance measures and also to identify the gaps and support them in proper implementation of cluster.

According to the Union Health Ministry, these teams will be deployed in 20 districts -- Mumbai, Thane, Pune in Maharashtra; Bhopal, Indore in Madhya Pradesh; Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara in Gujarat; South East and Central Districts in Delhi; Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan; Agra and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh; Hyderabad in Telangana; Chennai in Tamil Nadu; Kolkata in West Bengal; and Kurnool, Guntur and Krishna in Andhra Pradesh.

According to an office memorandum issued by the Ministry of Health on May 2, each Central team, comprising of experts from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), All India Institutes of Medical Science (AIIMS), Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER) and All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health and others, will submit reports to Additional Chief Secretary or Principal Health Secretary of respective states detailing their observations, areas for improvement and recommendations.

All these 20 districts are in the red zone. The Health Ministry has listed 130 districts in the country in Red Zone, 284 in 'Orange Zone' and 319 in 'Green Zone' on the basis of number of cases, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback.(UNI)